This review article reports current activities and recent progress on constructive approximation and numerical analysis in physical geodesy. The paper focuses on two major topics of interest, namely trial systems for purposes of global and local approximation and methods for adequate geodetic application. A fundamental tool is an uncertainty principle, which gives appropriate bounds for the quantification of space and momentum localization of trial functions. The essential outcome is a better understanding of constructive approximation in terms of radial basis functions such as splines and wavelets.

Two possible substitutes of the Fourier transform in geopotential determination are windowed Fourier transform (WFT) and wavelet transform (WT). In this paper we introduce harmonic WFT and WT and show how it can be used to give information about the geopotential simultaneously in the space domain and the frequency (angular momentum) domain. The counterparts of the inverse Fourier transform are derived, which allow us to reconstruct the geopotential from its WFT and WT, respectively. Moreover, we derive a necessary and sufficient condition that an otherwise arbitrary function of space and frequency has to satisfy to be the WFT or WT of a potential. Finally, least - squares approximation and minimum norm (i.e. least - energy) representation, which will play a particular role in geodetic applications of both WFT and WT, are discussed in more detail.

The satellite-to-satellite tracking (SST) problems are characterized from mathematical point of view. Uniqueness results are formulated. Moreover, the basic relations are developed between (scalar) approximation of the earth's gravitational potential by "scalar basis systems" and (vectorial) approximation of the gravitational eld by "vectorial basis systems". Finally, the mathematical justication is given for approximating the external geopotential field by finite linear combinations of certain gradient fields (for example, gradient fields of multi-poles) consistent to a given set of SST data.

The purpose of satellite-to-satellite tracking (SST) and/or satellite gravity gradiometry (SGG) is to determine the gravitational field on and outside the Earth's surface from given gradients of the gravitational potential and/or the gravitational field at satellite altitude. In this paper both satellite techniques are analysed and characterized from mathematical point of view. Uniqueness results are formulated. The justification is given for approximating the external gravitational field by finite linear combination of certain gradient fields (for example, gradient fields of single-poles or multi-poles) consistent to a given set of SGG and/or SST data. A strategy of modelling the gravitational field from satellite data within a multiscale concept is described; illustrations based on the EGM96 model are given.

In this paper we introduce a multiscale technique for the analysis of deformation phenomena of the Earth. Classically, the basis functions under use are globally defined and show polynomial character. In consequence, only a global analysis of deformations is possible such that, for example, the water load of an artificial reservoir is hardly to model in that way. Up till now, the alternative to realize a local analysis can only be established by assuming the investigated region to be flat. In what follows we propose a local analysis based on tools (Navier scaling functions and wavelets) taking the (spherical) surface of the Earth into account. Our approach, in particular, enables us to perform a zooming-in procedure. In fact, the concept of Navier wavelets is formulated in such a way that subregions with larger or smaller data density can accordingly be modelled with a higher or lower resolution of the model, respectively.

In modern geoscience, understanding the climate depends on the information about the oceans. Covering two thirds of the Earth, oceans play an important role. Oceanic phenomena are, for example, oceanic circulation, water exchanges between atmosphere, land and ocean or temporal changes of the total water volume. All these features require new methods in constructive approximation, since they are regionally bounded and not globally observable. This article deals with methods of handling data with locally supported basis functions, modeling them in a multiscale scheme involving a wavelet approximation and presenting the main results for the dynamic topography and the geostrophic flow, e.g., in the Northern Atlantic. Further, it is demonstrated that compressional rates of the occurring wavelet transforms can be achieved by use of locally supported wavelets.

This work is dedicated to the wavelet modelling of regional and temporal variations of the Earth's gravitational potential observed by GRACE. In the first part, all required mathematical tools and methods involving spherical wavelets are introduced. Then we apply our method to monthly GRACE gravity fields. A strong seasonal signal can be identified, which is restricted to areas, where large-scale redistributions of continental water mass are expected. This assumption is analyzed and verified by comparing the time series of regionally obtained wavelet coefficients of the gravitational signal originated from hydrology models and the gravitational potential observed by GRACE. The results are in good agreement to previous studies and illustrate that wavelets are an appropriate tool to investigate regional time-variable effects in the gravitational field.